Have you or someone you've known ever called Martin Luther King Jr. a heretic? Sadly, I've witnessed it happen often. Every time that I've publicly praised MLK as America's most outstanding theologian, someone inevitably replies "No! He's a heretic!" or "A heretic cannot be America's greatest theologian!"  Fundamentalists are the first to lambast Martin Luther King Jr. because MLK was a liberal Protestant theologian who did not affirm their five pillars of fundamentalism including biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, resurrection, etc. (Ironically, these fundamentalist despisers often identify Jonathan Edwards—a slave-owner and slavery defender—as America's greatest theologian, which is covert white supremacy.) In this article, I will use James H. Cone's essay "We Must Love Our White Brothers" from his lifechanging book Martin & Malcolm & America: a Dream or a Nightmare to defend of Martin Luther King Jr. from the fundamentalists and to explain why people who believe that these fundamentalist doctrines may still admire MLK as an outstanding theologian.

Understanding Martin Luther King's Jr. theology

In the first quote from James H. Cone's essay "We Must Love Our White Brothers", he explains that Martin Luther King Jr. theology may not be found in his academic writings or publications because these were written to appease his white professors and a white audience that expected him to recite the standard liberal Protestant theological answers from accepted theological texts. Other works by MLK were published by ghostwriters for strategic purposes. James H. Cone explains that Martin Luther King Jr.'s theology may only be found in his "preached word" and "practiced word". So those fundamentalist despisers who condemn MLK for his liberal Protestant theological writings do not truly understand the nature of MLK's theology.

James H. Cone writes, "While King was in seminary and graduate school, liberal Protestant theology provided the intellectual framework for the public expression of his faith. . . . What King really thought about God is not found in his essays or even the Ph.D. dissertation he wrote in graduate school. He was merely trying to meet the expectations of his professors, which is the reason much of what he wrote reflects standard texts on the subject. King's faith is not found even in some of his published essays and books about the civil rights movement. Again, trying to meet the expectations of a white public, some of the essays and books that bear his name were ghostwritten. One discovers King's faith primarily in his preached word (chiefly the unpublished sermons) delivered at Dexter Avenue, Evenezer, and other black churches and in his practiced word during many of his nonviolent, direct-action demonstrations, mainly in the South. It is foolish to deny the cogency of King's theology merely because it is not framed in the customary forms of academic theologians." [1]

It is true that Martin Luther King Jr. was not secretly a fundamentalist, and he did deny the fundamentalist doctrines that father Daddy King affirmed in the baptist church of his youth. James H. Cone explains that it was MLK's liberal Protestant theology that was the basis of his efficacious quest for civil rights, and provided MLK his social justice program and his civil disobedience strategy. MLK did not cling to liberal Protestantism theology as the fundamentalists did to their doctrines (to the exclusion of all others). Martin Luther King Jr. learned from liberal Protestantism for the purpose of his mission, and whatever was not for this prerogative was not essential to Martin King.

James H. Cone writes, "King thought of himself as a liberal, philosophical theologian who opposed the narrow 'fundamentalism' of his Baptist upbringing and its more sophisticated expresions in the neo-orthodox theology of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. He rejected the inerrancy of Scripture, Jesus' virgin birth and bodily resurrection, and other fundamentalist views of Christianity that were firmly held by his father, 'Daddy King,' but which contradicted his university-acquired, liberal Protestant faith. King enthusiastically embraced liberal theology's accent on the social gospel and the need to work toward the building of a just society on earth, which many refered to as the Kingdom of God. He also accepted the philosophy of personalism, using its language to communicate his beliefs about the dignity and worth of the human person." [2]

The gospel of the fundamentalists, as MLK understood it, taught that salvation is not on earth but far away in heaven, and also that salvation is not as a community but isolated personalism, and therefore MLK did not follow the fundamentalist gospel. Instead, the gospel according to liberal theology was universalist, and this compelled MLK to love his enemies and see reconciliation with those who oppressed him.

James H. Cone writes, "Despite his disappointment with the white church, King did not abandon his faith commitment and its link with the universal church. King was a unversalist who believed that the gospel of Jesus demanded freedom for all. The white church's failure to follow the mandates of the gospel did not invalidate it. Rather the white church's failure, King believed, obligated him and other Christians to bear witness more than ever to the universal message of the gospel so that the world might know that true Christianity is not only concerned with heaven over yonder but also with the quality of life hereon earth." [3]

Concluding remarks

Martin Luther King Jr. may be called America's greatest theologian even by people who reject his liberal Protestant theology because of the fruit that it bore during the civil rights movement (Matt 7:16). It was the universalism of MLK's liberal Protestantism that inspired his "I have a dream" speech, likewise it was his emphasis on here and now instead of a future resurrection that gave him boldness to continue his mission when he was oppressed by bombings and imprisonment and brutality. The fundamentalism of his father Daddy King did not bear this same fruit. 

Also, it is important to understand that Martin Luther King Jr.'s theology served the purpose of his mission, and was useful to MLK so far as it aided his end goals. And this means that many things he wrote in accords with liberal Protestant theology, were to accomplish his end goals, and were not ends in themselves. So MLK may be appreciated by everyone, even by people who believe the virgin birth and the resurrection are indispensable articles of faith.

Sources:

1. James H. Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: a Dream or a Nightmare, Orbis Books: Maryknoll 1991. p. 123.

2. James H. Cone. Ibid. p. 132.

3. James H. Cone. Ibid. p. 141.

4. James H. Cone. Ibid. pp. 150-1. [Header image of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis 1968]